Romans vs. Germans

Okay, forget all the other stuff below. This is really cool. Think of the opening scene of Gladiator. My favorite quote from the article: "We will need to take a new look at the sources." Surprisingly this happens often. The Roman defenses in the Germanic area were sparse at best, and the Romans never established, as far as we know, a definitive and stable line of defense. Add this to the fact that the fortifications they were building were not built to last, and we end up with little knowledge of what actually took place and less knowledge about where it took place. This is a field that is open to much discovery, as we can see from this article.

Which came first, the Dinosaur or the Spider?

British scientists have found what is perhaps the oldest evidence of spiders--a web fixed into amber.

"Oxford University paleobiologist Martin Brasier said the 140-million-year-old webbing provides evidence that arachnids had been ensnaring their prey in silky nets since the dinosaur age. He also said the strands were linked to each other in the roughly circular pattern familiar to gardeners the world over."

Keeping Time

I hope you are all ready to grow a second older but not gain any real time. The clock watchers of the world have decided that we need to add a single second to the year in order to keep calendars in time with earth's motions. The earth is continuously slowing down, so time has to be added to the calendar. It's going to happen on December 31 at 6:59:59. Prepare yourself.

Scraping Plaque

Dirty teeth lead to preservation of history. From the AP:

"Dental plaque scraped from the teeth of people who lived as much as 9,200 years ago revealed traces of cultivated crops, including squash and beans . . . They studied 39 teeth from six to eight individuals. Found in northern Peru's Nanchoc Valley, the teeth were uncovered in the remains of round house structures in a settlement dated to 9,200 to 5,500 years ago. Some teeth were dirtier than others. We found starch grains on most of the teeth. About a third of the teeth contained large numbers of starch grains."

I have supported the preservation of historical record for a long time. I guess this means that next time I don't feel like brushing my teeth, I have a good excuse.

Moon Shadow

Make sure you step outside on Thanksgiving night to observe the close proximity of the moon, Jupiter, and Venus. And if you are in the mood on Monday, they are even closer. If you miss this, don't worry. You can catch it again in November of 2052.

Copernicus Rises Again

In keeping with the same general topic as my last post, the remains of Copernicus have been identified through DNA testing. For those of you not astronomically inclined, he was the dude who forwarded the theory that the sun, rather than the earth, is the center of this universe. It was thought that he was buried in the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Frombork, Poland, but no one knew exactly where in the cathedral he was buried until now. DNA was matched by analyzing one of his teeth and some hair that was left in a book that he owned.

History Again

Some say that history is stagnant. That could not be farther from the truth. History does, in fact, keep changing--or at least the modern perception of history keeps changing with research advances. Recently archaeologists, digging around on two different parts of the globe, contributed to our understanding of ancient peoples. In Turkey the earliest evidence (8th century BCE) of the theological idea of the soul was uncovered in the form of a grave stele. Etched in the stone is an indication that there was thought of an afterlife and the soul within that afterlife. In Germany archaeologists discovered the earliest evidence (4600 years ago) of family structure in that area. Grave sites revealed that families (mother, father, and children) were buried together after being killed in what was probably a violent attack. Study of the teeth showed that the women were leaving their own family group to join that of their husband's (or whatever the equivalent of a mate was called at that time).